His Ass Weighs Nothing

The perfect quantum mechanics meme doesn't exi— collapses into a superposition of laughter Schrödinger's famous thought experiment: expectation vs reality in its purest form. On the left, the popular explanation where the cat is simultaneously "ALIVE" and "DEAD" (or should I say "ALIEADVE" with those strategically superimposed letters). On the right, the actual mathematical nightmare that physicists deal with daily. This is quantum mechanics in a nutshell - the public thinks it's about quirky half-dead cats, while physicists are drowning in partial differential equations that make calculus look like kindergarten arithmetic. Next time someone at a party says "I totally get quantum physics," just show them the right side of this image and watch their confidence function rapidly approach zero.

Graphene thinks it's hot stuff with its single-atom-thick carbon sheet and ridiculous flexibility. Meanwhile, Tom and Jerry are over here casually defying the laws of physics by squeezing through keyholes, flattening like pancakes, and surviving hammer blows that would pulverize diamonds. Scientists spend billions developing super-materials while cartoon characters have been ignoring material science since 1940. The real breakthrough would be figuring out what Tom and Jerry are actually made of. Probably some quantum-cartoon composite that CERN is still trying to discover.

The meme perfectly captures the escalating complexity of "The Three Body Problem." First panel: the Netflix adaptation? Meh. Second panel: Cixin Liu's original novel? Getting better! Third panel: the actual physics equations describing three massive bodies interacting gravitationally? *MIND BLOWN* Those intimidating differential equations represent one of physics' most famous unsolvable problems - you can't predict where three orbiting bodies will end up over time without numerical approximations. It's why NASA needs supercomputers to calculate spacecraft trajectories! The true galaxy brain moment is realizing the book's title wasn't just a metaphor for human relationships, but an actual mathematical nightmare that haunts physicists to this day.

The engineering hierarchy in its natural habitat. Mechanical and aerospace engineers pretending civil engineers don't exist, while simultaneously terrorizing them with Newton's Second Law. F=ma≠0 is apparently the engineering equivalent of showing a horror movie to a toddler. Meanwhile, civil engineers are just trying to build bridges without getting bullied about their fear of moving objects. Classic STEM food chain dynamics.

Nothing says "I am the master of the universe" quite like knowing that dE/dt=0 means energy is conserved. While your friends flex their money and status, you're over here casually dropping conservation of energy principles in conversation. The pink bar is practically off the charts because let's face it - understanding the fundamental laws that govern reality is the ultimate power move. Who needs a corner office when you can explain why the entire cosmos doesn't just randomly lose energy? Physics equations: making mere mortals feel inadequate since Newton dropped that apple.

Nothing says "physics problem" quite like turning living creatures into perfect geometric shapes. In the real world, cats are complex biological organisms with non-uniform density and irregular shapes. But in physics? Square that feline! Reduce it to a cube with uniform mass distribution! Next week we'll model a cow as a perfect sphere in a vacuum. Because why let reality get in the way of a solvable equation? The hallmark of theoretical physics: if nature doesn't cooperate with your math, just redefine nature.